MVSHBOOMS AND THEIB KIND 349 



a full-grown and fresh mushroom, cut off the 

 stipe even with the lower edges of the gills, and 

 then lay the cap, bottom down, on a piece of 

 white paper in a dry room, and cover it with a 

 bowl or bell -jar to protect it from currents of 

 air. In a few hours, or a day, carefully lift the 

 cap. The pupil will find a copious deposit of 

 "dust," in the form of a reverse pattern of the 

 gills. This dust is made up of spores: and such 

 a diagram is called a "spore -print." "We conclude, 

 then, that the gills are fruiting parts, bearing 

 spores in countless numbers. 



432. When the pupil finds a clump of mush- 

 rooms, let him carefully remove the earth and 

 observe the soft white threads in the ground. 

 These tangled threads are commonly likened to 

 roots, but structurally they are not like the roots of 

 flowering plants. This mass of threads and cords is 

 the "spawn" or mycelium, and from it arises the 

 fruiting body which we call the mushroom or the 

 toadstool. 



432a. The tissue of this underground mycelium is not differ- 

 ent in kind from that of the stipe and pileus, and the botanist 

 calls all the vegetative tissue of the mushroom mycelium. The 

 pupil may be fortunate enough, in digging up mushrooms, to find 

 little knobs or "buttons" on the underground mycelium, showing 

 the mushrooms in their young state. 



4326. In popular usage, the word mushroom is applied to the 

 fleshy and soft plants of this class, and toadstool to the very thin 



